the happenings
by yasiko
Summary: When the war is over, everyone expects the hero to come down from the heavens, perfect as can be. what they never expected was for the hero to come back broken and blood stained. And the only one out there to help, is the only one noone wants help from.


**The Happenings**

Insanity leads to chaos,

Then to solitude…

The fruitless effort of adding

Meaning to what is meaningless.

A lone crimson tear falls to the sea,

The echo of the remaining star

Cries out in the infinite vacuum.

The least I can do

Is send my distant prayers

Over the wind of time,

Setting sail on dreams.

-chrono cross

We've all been through hardships in the past two months; we've lost loved ones, seen blood spill, watch as our world crumbled, 23 students were never going to return to school. But none of us -not a single one of us- had to live through the unbearable pain that Harry Potter had to bear.

He was taken from his aunt's home early in September, no one really knows how they got inside the house, but there's rumor that the muggles he was living with invited the captors in. He was thrown into a cell, tortured beyond belief. Dementors became his companions, blood his friend and rape a pastime. They say people were killed before his eyes, so that the dark lord could see his pain. His wand was broken, his bones crushed, his heart smeared with filth. They say that one day he just wandered into Hogwarts, dried blood all over him and a distant look in his eyes. When we all realized that the dark lord was gone, and that Potter had finally done what he was destined to do, we were ecstatic, until we actually looked at him. Harry Potter left but who came back we are still unsure.

There were things about him that shocked us. His perpetually shaking hands for one. Not ever the strongest of spells could stop the tremors that ran through his small frail fingers. His dull eyes even caused a few people to cry. His eyes were green, we all knew, but before they were like a window into his emotions, into his very being, shining brighter and with more life than you could ever imagine. But now, now his eyes were a flat dark green, still a window to his soul, but a dead soul, a broken, dark one. His glasses must have been broken during the fight, because when he showed up, his glasses were smashed, one lens crushed and the other twisting out of its frame. No matter how much they begged and pleaded, bribed and conned, he wouldn't fix them. But the worst, the very worst of what now afflicted our once-potter, was that not a word came from him, not a sound escaped his thin bruised neck, nothing could part those rose red lips.

At first they thought he was just recovering, most trauma patients refused to speak for the first few weeks, and he was really only that; a person following the traits lay down by the psyche. So they cut him some slack, they let him wander around with out explanation; they let him keep his glasses that way and not eat. But after a few weeks, and he was making his bed, walking with his friends to class, even trying to take notes- but with his shaking hands, its was an impossibility- they realized something, he wasn't going to jump up one day and say "I can speak again!", he wasn't going to miraculously become the Potter they all knew and loved, he was going to continue on in his silent existence and he had always planned too.

At first they were angry, Weasly even punched him, but with all the pain that Potter had lived through before, the puny hit was nothing and he just turned and smiled, a crooked smile, then went back to looking out his stupid window. Then they resorted to asking and then begging, then bribing, nothing worked.

I suppose it was my idea to rename him, I was in the infirmary helping with the healing potions, with potter in his usual spot by the big window of the infirmary, when he looked at me. He'd been in the school for four months and yet he had never really looked at me, never really looked at anyone. But that afternoon, with me standing on a chair to reach a high shelf, and him sitting on the window ledge, he really looked at me.

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His eyes seemed to widen, hold a little life, and his lips grew to a tight line. They wandered up from my toes examining every little spot on me, every hair. I watched as his eyes inspected, every muscle frozen in place as I watched tiny bits of emotion begin to shine upon his face. When he reached my eyes he stood up suddenly and walked till we were inches apart. His green eyes weren't the same green; we all knew that, but this time I saw a bit of a sparkle, like a light under a jewel. His face was different, his stance, his whole being was changed just the slightest, till I saw it. What he'd been trying to show us ever since he came back to us, something I had already realized but had never admitted aloud. He wasn't Potter anymore. Why we even continued to call him by that name baffled me.

As this realization came upon me, he had blinked smiled his annoyingly innocent smile and tipped his head to the side. Reaching a hand up his shaking fingers brushed a hair away from my forehead.

After that I spent most of my time helping in the infirmary, really sitting with him, watching him as he played with my hair, trying to guess what name he wanted. I tried all the flamboyant names that purebloods loved first, but he just shook his head and tugged on my pale blonde hair.

Then I tried the common names, short nicknames and even house-elf names yet nothing pleased this new being, then it hit me a week into our little one sided debate.

'Julian… I like that one…'

He had paused, looking out the window, his eyes becoming even more out of focus, till a small smile light his features. Not his lips per say, but his whole face. Then he looked at me -again with his whole being behind it- and blinked. I don't really know how that became his signal for yes, but that day when he looked at me and blinked, his face alight with some kind of emotion I couldn't name, I knew- he liked that one.

I leaned back till I was resting against the glass,

"Yeah… it's nice…"

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It isn't like he could just come out and say that he had decided to go by another name, and the likelihood of them even letting me within three feet of them let alone tell them something completely inane like, " He wants to be called Julian now, you know?" I can almost picture the black-eye and split lip that endeavor would produce.

The hospital wing escapes were just that, escapes from their constant distain. I know that I was a bad person when the war started, but Potter had helped, even if he and everyone else were unaware of it. When he went missing something in me turned on… or snapped… or was revealed, something in any case changed. The only real thing that I distinctly remember is the terror that he was gone, that when I went back to school the spot at the table would be empty of the only thing I truly believed in. I was harsh, cruel, rude, and so much more to him and now that I reflect on it I have no idea why, and yet I know that if I had the chance, if he had come back as Potter and not this Julian, then things would be the exact same. It was like realizing a wrong answer on a test and having the chance to go back and do it again. I was given a clean slate with Potter… Julian. I wasn't about to blow it with being kicked out of the school by his friends.

He, of course, had already come up with a plan, that didn't include a split lip and bloody nose. He stopped responding to his given name, just turned his head the other way and continued doing what he was doing. When he signed his name he wrote 'Julian', he changed his name on everything, even the medals he had gotten for Quidditch. It was the know-it–all who finally caught on, and passed the message on to the rest of the school. When the whispered secret finally reached my ears, I was grinning so wide I made a few girls faint.

Our visits became more frequent. He caught me in the halls and dragged me to the wing that had become our own little getaway. We spent hours there, me ditching class, him hiding from the constantly around the corner friends. I normally carried on a one-sided conversation, making assumptions at what he would say and going along with it, he just sat there, staring out the window, one hand in my hair, another holding his broken glasses to his face. I tried to make improvements to his condition. I spelled his glasses so even if they were broken he could see through them as if they were brand new. I gave him things to do with his hands to concentrate and quell the tremors that pulsed through them. I played music to get him to hum to the beat, of course he barely even nodded his head to it but at least he knew it was there. He improved to the point that during our time together he was almost always 'there'. His eyes got some of its original color back; his face took on the flush of a healthy human being for the first time in months.

But I made one huge mistake.

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It was raining again as it had been for the past week and we were sitting on the window ledge, me leaning against the wall him leaning against me. I was so relaxed I had already drifted into sleep twice, both to be awoken by Madam Pomfrey scolding us about getting a cold. And he hadn't even moved, a peaceful feeling emanating from him in waves. I had played with the idea of offering to buy him another wand for a few days now, tossing it back and forth like a pin ball never really settling on any particular decision. But I was so happy, so relaxed, and he was so tranquil, so calm, I thought it would be safe.

The second the words were out of my mouth I knew they were the wrong thing to say. He instantly stiffened, twitching away from everywhere we touched. He drew in a quick breath and shoved himself off me, backing away till he was near one of the many beds.

I jumped up, apologizing till I was blue in the face but he just turned and left, without even a hug goodbye.

I had expected him to forgive me, to come and be with me again, but no matter how long I waited in the infirmary, no matter how much I dawdled between classes, he still didn't appear. I saw him though, walking his friends to class, eating dinner in the great hall, during his check ups in the hospital wing. He didn't even spare a glance my way, not a blink.

When it did hit me that I had ruined something as delicate as silk, I felt a great tearing in my chest, a ripping of all that I had built around him and our time together. It hurt _so_ much.

I took pain-killers, I slept till noon, I ate everything and nothing, I talked and didn't talk, yet nothing would take away this stupid hole that had taken residence in my chest.

Weeks passed, a month, two. I soon became a ghost of what Potter had looked like; pale, skinny, tired and unspeaking. The teachers sent me back to bed, Pomfrey told me to take potions, the headmaster told me to go home and take a break from school. But those weren't the solutions I was looking for; I was waiting till Julian came around a corner and met my eyes. I was waiting till I could feel his warmth, and his comfort, and his solitude. I was waiting till he accepted my apology.

Of course he wasn't looking any better than I. The color I had gained had left, the fat he had taken on was lost and the smile was now just as life less as it was when he first appeared. His friends pushed food on him; he tagged behind them when they walked outside. He was constantly reported to be in bed, sleeping.

Sooner or later someone had to notice, it was obvious enough without empty seats in the great hall.

Of course Granger pieced it together first, like always.

She cornered me after I had snuck down to the kitchens after lunch for my food. Bombarding me with questions that she already had the answers for and telling me exactly how she felt about the stupidity of our actions.

I'm still unsure about how she got us in the same room, still unsure about how I got there, or how he did. But there we were, both standing at different ends of an empty classroom, staring at our feet. She started yelling at the both of us, ranting on for an hour, at least.

During her tirade, I raised my eyes from my shoes to see that he was looking at me.

I looked back.

Our eyes met and I mouth an apology to him.

He smiled, really smiled and mouthed one back.

I smiled and he was beside me, hugging the life from me.

He was crying and I was crying and Hermione was gone and we were both crushed so close together that I was shocked to realize that we were two separate beings.

He blew his nose in my shirt but I didn't care, because he was warmth and comfort, solitude and love. His hands were in my hair, his glasses poking my chin, his heart beat against mine.

"I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I won't d it again, I swear!" I whispered harshly into his hair, my eyes squeezed shut as I felt that hole slowly fill in with the thought that he was 'there' again.

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He did get better; he did get new glasses and stopped the shaking.

He did smile with love and finish school.

He did go to his best friends wedding.

He did find a home.

He did take up hobbies.

And he did all of this with me by his side, with me pushing him along till we were standing outside of Ollivanders, a pouch of gold in his pocket and an intent in his mind. When we stepped out I hugged him, proud, and he hugged back, relieved. A small wooden wand stuck out of his robe pocket, and a purely happy smile twitched his lips.

"Thank you" he croaked into my ear and when he pulled away, bright green eyes stared back at me, with all the life and happiness that there ever was in those eyes, maybe more. He was still Julian, he was still Potter, but now he was just who he was, regardless of the hardships he lived through.

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I'm unsure of my role in his life, I'm unsure of his in mine, but it is what it is and I wouldn't change it for a million different lives.


End file.
